When Glossies Attack: Blake Lively Latest Victim Of Airbrushing Whack Jobs
Blake Lively's people are throwing a hissy fit over the Gossip Girl star's cover shot on this month's Seventeen. And before assuming this is just another case of some publicist overreacting and getting their La Perlas in a twist over nothing, one quick look at the cover in question actually makes us side with the flack this time. Lively's gone out of her way recently to make sure no one confuses her with Paris Hilton, but her puffy eyes, hollow cheekbones and vampire chompers on the Seventeen cover aren't helping her case. Which begs the question: why is it so hard for a magazine to shoot a decent celebrity cover? Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and Sarah Jessica Parker are all recent victims of the same unflattering cover treatments, and all kinds of oddly unglamorous shots have hit newsstands for years.
Just a few weeks ago, EW chose to accompany a Q&A with Angelina Jolie with a very, very close close-up of what we previously considered one of the most gorgeous faces in Hollywood. But the mag's effort to showcase Jolie the actress, rather than Jolie the pregnant actress, resulted in the very first photo to make her infamous lips look unsavory. And Scarlett Johansson suffered a similar fate on the cover of artsy mag Paste, turning her trademark chest away from the camera and posing like an effervescent candidate for the role of E.T.'s girlfriend in E.T. 2: Sex And The Extra-Terrestrial.
Maxim somehow thought Jessica Simpson looked sexiest with a frumpy 50s housewife hairdo on a cover from last year, while Vogue recently photoshopped the hell out of Gwyneth Paltrow's head, essentially decapitating her in one swift crop. Sarah Jessica Parker fell victim to the cooking and cleaning obsessives in aprons over at Good Housekeeping, reverting to her frizzy-haired, good makeup-challenged self from the early 90s.
Mariah Carey's attempt to look soft and angelic backfired on this Allure cover, where the queen diva appears washed out, completely devoid of her naturally tawny skin. Back in the heady days of Lindsay Lohan comeback covers, Maxim tricked the then-straight star out in a very cleavage-y, feisty spread, but Lohan's sullen facial expression suggest a dire need to strip off the ridiculous Victorian outfits and down the nearest bottle of perfume. And then there's poor Fergie, who apparently provided an outlet for one very miserable Cosmopolitan eyebrow plucker's rage.
[Photo credits: Go Fug Yourself, Jezebel, We Heart Angelina]
- .666 AVERAGE [NYP]
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@Calraigh: I saw that TV Guide and thought "X Files? So who's the chick?" I'm still not convinced that's Gillian Anderson. The only evidence is that she's in a photograph with Agent Mulder and a headline that references X Files.
MissHathaway
Celebrities looking weird sells magazines. What's so hard to figure out?
Condéleeza
Since Papa Joe can no longer sell his daughter's maidenly virtue, he's selling her boobs. I bet he did the Photoshop job himself. But she's still a good Christian girl, right? That picture clearly says, "Look at my breasts! Look at my breasts! Thank you Jesus, for these hooters!"
Good Housekeeping. Ugh. I hate that magazine name and wish it would go under. They tried to make SJP look like a 1950s housewife, for cripes sakes.
lalaland13
Ok I'll give Blake some credit for flipping out about this cover - she looks really haggard.
Jappelbaum
Has anyone seen the latest TV Guide with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson? Anderson looks unrecognisable. By that I mean it's like they put somebody else on the cover because it's not her. Why the fuck are they doing this, really?
Calraigh
Those pictures are scary. And they've made Blake's eyes even more slitty!
bermygal
I think AbFab had it right: editorial sucks to that their crap ads look good
meechybee
@heidiho:
nd how come she gets a star and I don't?
lizzybennet
@heidiho:
I made it up.
lizzybennet
@Elkie: It's not the photographers, it's the art directors and Editors-in-Chief. Photographers don't choose the money shot (the cover image).
@lizzybennet: I read and read again, but I still cannot comprehend what you are saying here. Who are you talking about?
heidiho
On behalf of photographers I apologize humbly and whack us all upside the head collectiveley...
Shameless plug: I try to make up for our worse side... www.Foto-Andy.com
"Good" Crazy...
Blake's hair looks like it has had it with this fame thing and is departing from all available exits.
OldTowneTavern
Those cruel Seventeen bastards! They made not pretty Blake Whatshername look not pretty.
Little Mintz Sunshine
Umm artsy mag Paste? Don't think so. It's ctually The Saturday Evening Post disguised as a music magazine. Horribly written in some Midwestern dialect that makes music sound remarkably like the recipe for cole slaw.
And Fergie? Come on. She's the first female to female tranny. They have to do something. . .
brionity
It seems to be the trouble started when they went beyond just clever maquillage and good lighting and starting messing with the actual image so that the celebs in question don't even resemble themselves. Jesus, go back to just deft cheek and jaw highlighting and decent lighting, would you? I won't buy a magazine with an alien on the cover.
Trixie from Toronto
@lefty: I stand by the usage. When listing a few loosely related bits of info, the summation prompts an obvious question not yet asked. Therefore, the scattered information as a whole is begging to be organized by proposing a theory, no?
@Elkie: I don't blame the photographers, since they're not the ones photoshopping. It's the photo department drones at the mags. Who've probably been instructed by some higher-up to sabotage certain cover girls because they didn't give good interview.
Molly Friedman
oh the post divorce "letter " was to his teenage daughter, which appeared as an "article"in Seventeen. Vomit. way to make points with the daughter in the divorce proceedings. Pig.
lizzybennet
this cover has so many problems noneofwhich involve how the model looks (though the coverlines lost in the hair doesn't help)
What the fuck does cathie Black get paid to do? What the fuck does the big HR heavy, who acc to WWD was responsible for the Seventeen hire (and got to write a post-divorce "I-still-love-you-please -love-me- though-I'm dating-a-younger-prettier-much much richer (thanks to her ex husband)-woman-than-Mom) get paid to do? Who the fuck is the EIC and why hasn't she been fired? this magazine is trash.
lizzybennet
I wish magazines would stop hiring photographers who can use Photoshop and start hiring photographers who can take beautiful pictures. Too much to ask?
Elkie
@CourageousCoward: Not bad at all. Hell, I like to spend my Saturday afternoons doing just that. I just wouldn't want to be photographed like that.
Scoregasm
Oh for Chrissakes, Molly. It doesn't "beg the question." It RAISES the question. It's too damn hot for grading papers.
lefty
This pic is really funny, especially on an issue with PERFECT HAIR on the cover! But there have been some really horrible covers recently. The Lilo, Mariah, and JSimp covers aren't bad; they're just selling a brand of femininity that doesn't appeal to all. They KNOW the most saleable thing about JSimp is those boobs, and hair just gets in the way.
raincoaster
@Scoregasm: "got her high and dipped her in bacon grease" - You say that like it's a bad thing.
CourageousCoward
Are any of these worse than the Vogue cover with Drew Barrymore? The one where she looks like the photographer got her high and dipped her in bacon grease? Although, honestly, maybe Drew's used to that after her time spent with Tom Green.
Scoregasm